Official Synopsis
Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph and Jon Hamm star alongside Jennifer Westfeldt and Adam Scott in a daring and hilarious ensemble comedy about a close-knit circle of friends whose lives change once they have kids. The last two singles in the group (Westfeldt and Scott) observe the effect that kids have had on their friends’ relationships and wonder if there’s a better way to make it work. When they decide to have a child together and date other people, their unconventional “experiment” leads everyone in the group to question the nature of friendship, family and, above all, true love.
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This was an ambitious film to make, and especially write. It was incredibly easy to see how this was going to end up overall, but director/writer Jennifer Westfeldt did her best to try to hide it. The film starts out logical, as Jason Fryman (Adam Scott) and Julie Keller (Jennifer Westfeldt) put together a sweet verbal pact to have a child together, but not get married. What’s particularly accurate is that marriage and kids does change a couple’s relationship, be it good or bad. The fear of losing that fiery flame with your significant other is valid, therefore the central plot point of the film is very much acceptable. Any married couple will give validity to the overall concern of Jason and Julie that things change once you are married with kids.
The problem with the film is that the predictability gets clearly in the way of the story. Westfeldt did her best to try to fool the audience with how the film ultimately ends (which you can probably guess), but didn’t do a very good job of doing it. Towards the end of the movie she was still trying to throw curve balls at the audience, trying to fool them into thinking that there’s a strong possibility the two main characters weren’t going to end up with each other. Instead of just letting the stereotypical romantic film play out, she complicated it and nearly made Adam Scott’s Jason look like the bad guy. It was messy towards the end and it clearly showed she was having a hard time wrapping the film up. That was honestly too bad, as it could have wrapped up well without the unnecessary dragging. This film has enough unique content in it to justify a typical fairytale ending.
With all this said, the trip to the end of the film is worth your time, mostly thanks to the ensemble of personalities that Westfeldt put in it. You’ve got Jon Hamm, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Chris O’Dowd, Megan Fox and Edward Burns. The two strongest characters are Maya Rudolph’s Leslie and Leslie’s husband Alex, played by Chris O’Dowd. They are probably the funniest couple, and most realistic of the bunch. O’Dowd is especially funny, as his physical comedy/expressions really make him lovable and goofy (this man needs more films in the U.S.). Anyway, the cast really does help the film, and the story, as they are wonderful examples of people married with kids.
Overall, the film isn’t that bad. I think the supporting cast helps keep the story on track. Most of the movie is good, but the trip to the end really does seem very indecisive.
That being said, the Blu-ray quality on this release was great.
While the film was predominantly yellow for some reason, maybe possibly to give it that classic feel, the transfer was pretty spectacular. The blacks, reds, yellows, whites and blues really come out crisp and clean. There isn’t any compression issue with Friends with Kids or color banding in some of the darker scenes (like the infamous ski lodge dinner scene that is lit by candles at the table); you literally have no transfer issues with this release. It’s yet another shining example of how Lionsgate gives a damn about its movies, regardless of box office success or not. The studio is slowly becoming one of my top three Blu-ray release studios.
As for audio, you get this film mastered in 5.1 DTS-HD with a 1.78:1 aspect ratio.
Finally, in regards to special features here’s what you’re getting:
– Commentary with Jennifer Westfeldt, Jon Hamm and William Rexer
– Making Friends with Kids
– Ad-Libs / Bloopers
– MJ Rocks at Video Games
– Scene 42: Anatomy of a Gag
– Deleted Scenes (with optional commentary)
Again, for a release that didn’t knock it out of the ballpark in the theaters, this is actually a good set of features. The ‘making of’ featurette is solid, the scene 42 is gold, as well as the MJ Rocks feature. Regretfully, the ad-libs/bloopers reel was not very good, which is shocking considering the cast. Anyway, overall the commentary and good featurettes equal out to be a solid special features section.
